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October 2009

Program: 7:30 p.m. Joyce Ritchie will present “Teaching Tools for Astronomy” - A Show and Tell presentation of astronomy concepts that can be taught using hands on materials, to students in an age appropriate and tested manner. On October 5th the initial concepts for students in grades 2 - 4 will be demonstrated.

After the program we'll have a brief business meeting. The discussion will include The Astronomical League, liability insurance, club name and other business.

Meteorite Impacts Reveal Ice on Mars

Recent meteorite strikes on Mars have exposed deposits of frozen water near the Martian surface. Pictures of the impact sites taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show that frozen water may be available to explorers of the Red Planet at lower latitudes than previously thought.

"This ice is a relic of a more humid climate from perhaps just several thousand years ago," says Shane Byrne of the University of Arizona, Tucson. Byrne is a member of the team operating the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE camera, which captured the unprecedented images.

So far, the camera team has found bright ice exposed at five Martian sites with new craters that range in depth from approximately half a meter to 2.5 meters (1.5 feet to 8 feet). The craters did not exist in earlier images of the same sites. Bright patches darkened in the weeks following initial observations, as freshly exposed ice vaporized into the thin Martian atmosphere. The finds indicate water-ice occurs beneath Mars' surface halfway between the north pole and the equator, a lower latitude than expected in the dry Martian climate. For more information visit: